October 12, 2004

Late Monday evening, the turkey eaten and the family reunion over, Martha got a note from her grandmother saying that her boy toy was “happy, smiling, and handsome.” She laughed and glared at her boy toy, who was sprawling handsomely on her bed wanting her.

“And he’s also goddamn stupid,” she said still laughing. She spent the whole weekend alternately loving and teasing him, and because he loved her madly he did all sorts of silly things so she would tease him more.

It all started Friday afternoon when he arrived on her doorsteps clutching roses, eyes wild, breath rugged. She took him in and kissed him, skin pressed against skin.

“I want to learn all about your Tudor history,” she said. In bed she gave him poems and a brief history of Tudors and Stuarts. And once she finished loving her boy toy, she started teasing him. Over dinner she laughed at him mercilessly, and he laughed too, almost to the point of tears.

She kept teasing him the next day once they arrived in Collingwood and went to the golf course open house with her father. The boy toy drank some wine and lost all inhibitions, jumping on rocks and trees and pulling her with him. Around her he was a different creature, invincible yet tender.

Later, at the dinner table, she made fun of his tenderness, and he laughed again, his eyes moist with bewilderment. She had to hold him all day and night to calm his fears.

Next day she took her boy toy to meet her entire clan at the Thanksgiving family reunion. The reunion took place at a wonderful farmhouse in the middle of endless fields, golden and red in the crisp autumn air. The savage emptiness around him made him wild with excitement, and abandoning all bounds of decency he grabbed her and made her run through the fields.

He jumped all over the goddamn place, shouting, waving, climbing hills and trees. Out there he was happy, smiling, and handsome. And the wine he drank earlier got to him. In the middle of nowhere, he took her in his arms and told her again that he loved her.

He also promised to eat her and her brother if the three of them were ever marooned. Back at the farmhouse, she put makeup on the left side of his face.

Her boy toy only cleaned up next morning when they were set to return to Toronto. But before they left, he wanted to jump in the pond outside even though the water was freezing. She agreed to let him under one condition.

“You’ll have to keep your underwear on,” she said. “You can’t show up naked in front of my entire family.”

So he jumped in the freezing pond in his white underwear, the water biting into his back. He screamed like a girl, and when he got out, shivering, she kissed him.

“Only losers jump in a freezing pond,” she said. But the jump invigorated him and he smiled at her happily.

Back at her place Monday evening, sprawled on her bed as she worked on her essays, her boy toy still smiled and still wanted her. She eventually gave in.